…Ofcom received the most complaints per 100,000 subscribers about Vodafone for the eighth quarter running.

Though Vodafone managed to achieve record-breaking levels of complaint in previous quarters, the number of protesting customers is clearly on a downward path, as obvious from the graph above. But that still leaves them with three times as many complaints as the average for the postpaid mobile sector, and more than twice as many complaints as the next worst performers.

Ofcom’s scanty report once again states that the leading driver of Vodafone complaints is issues with billing, pricing and charging. It does not take a genius to infer the enormous wave of customer complaints stemmed from mistakes made during a major billing migration that occurred two years ago. Amazingly, Vodafone UK were never punished for overcharging customers, though they received a multi-million dollar fine for not responding adequately to the resulting complaints. That is a bit like jailing a thief not for his original crime but because he was slow to return the stolen goods.

Merry Christmas to all Vodafone UK customers. Your bills are still much more likely to be wrong, but not as likely to be wrong as previously!

About the Author

Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), a global association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He is a qualified chartered accountant, with degrees in information systems, and in mathematics and philosophy.